Strap a smartphone to a countertop oven and you get June

As urban areas start to sprawl, not everyone has room for a full-size oven in their apartments — which is exactly why Matt Van Horn and Nikhil Bhogal decided to make a smart, ultra-high-end countertop oven. “The concept of having built-in ovens is very U.S.-centric,” Bhogal tells Digital Trends. “We feel the trend will slowly move to high-performance countertop appliances, and this is where we see the future.”

They also want the June Intelligent Oven to also help move the kitchen into a more central role in the smart home. But it’s more than just app-controlled; it has a built-in camera, sensors, and a scale, so it knows exactly what you’re making and just how to cook it.

Bhogal and Van Horn worked together at social networking app Path before leaving to start June. Previously, Van Horn ran business development for Digg and was a co-founder of Zimride (aka, Lyft); Bhogal was an engineer at Apple, helping perfect its camera functionality.

While they knew they wanted their new product to have a mobile component, they weren’t quite sure what that product should be. During late-night brainstorming sessions, the pair discovered a mutual passion for cooking, which sparked the idea for the oven. The 22-member team now has many former Apple employees, as well as people who worked on FitBit, Nest, and GoPro. “We’ve taken all that experience and are expending all that effort on the kitchen and our project,” says Van Horn.

The result is an oven running a 2.3GHz Quad Core NVIDIA Processor. “It’s got the brains of a high-end tablet,” says Bhogal. Those brains power the five-inch touchscreen, which has an accompanying knob. The engineers have trained the oven to recognize 15 categories of food, from chicken to cookie dough, thanks to the built-in camera. If you put in a tray of brownies, June can tell what it is, weigh it, and use the internal temperature to set the correct cooking time. Using the iOS app, users can stream a video of dessert baking and get notifications when they’re done.

Michelin-star chef Michael Mina serves as an advisor for June, and his input shaped the way the company designed its oven. “He actually let us look at how food is prepared in high end restaurants,” says Bhogal.

If you want to first bake then broil a chicken, you can use the two built-in temperature probes to automatically do this for you, based on temperature instead of time. It’s a restaurant-quality experience that’s now available at home, says Bhogal: “This was the perfect time to transcribe the technology, which has only existed in these five-and-six-digit retail-price ovens, and bring that to the home.”

The quality extends to the oven’s materials, its creators say. An “infinitely cleanable” stainless steel interior, carbon-fiber heating elements, and triple-glazed, thermally coated glass all help the oven heat up in seconds and retain a consistent temperature, says Bhogal. It has a one-cubic-foot capacity (you won’t be making any turkeys in there, Van Horn admits) and reaches 500 degrees Fahrenheit, though the outside stays cool to the touch.

All of this comes at the hefty price of $1,495, which you can lock in starting today for a deposit of $95. The units won’t ship until spring of next year, but Van Horn is excited to see what happens once they finally do. “We see it taking away most of your everyday oven usage for a small family,” he says. “On Thanksgiving you’ll still be using your large oven, but you’ll be using your June a lot, too.” Indeed, for only the fanciest of mini pizza bagels.

We all know that Instant Pots are the bomb, but did you know that Instant Pot has a sous vide immersion circulator too? The Accu Slim lets you cook sous vide recipes at home. How does it perform? We tested the device to find out.

Walmart dropped prices on best-selling air fryers from Ninja, Farberware, and La Gourmet. Interest in air fryers took off when home cooks realized the possibility for guilt-free fried food when you cook with very little to zero oil.

Amazon cut prices on Alexa and Amazon Echo device bundles. The second-generation Amazon Echo and third-generation Echo Dot are bundled in discounted deals with the Amazon Smart Plug. The Echo and Echo Dot are also bundled together.

Looking for the best home security systems for your house? These systems offer the best mix of devices, smart features, monitoring services, and fees that you can afford (plus good customer service reports).

Postmates is offering customers the chance to order meals with free delivery. But you'll have to be cool with the idea of waiting a little longer, as the delivery driver will be carrying other meals for different customers.

Spring kicks off allergy season, and Amazon has cut prices on three highly rated air purifiers to bring relief. Allergens and contaminants in the air can have long-term consequences, says the EPA, so proactive steps can help today and later…

Walmart slashed prices of top robot vacuums from iRobot, Shark, Eufy, and Ecovacs just in time for spring cleaning season. With a robot vacuum on the job you can retire that old upright and let a robot vacuum take over floor-cleaning…

AeroGardens can grow up to six plants at one time. The plants grow in water, not soil, so you never have the mess of outdoor gardening in your clean home. This method allows the plants to grow five times faster than if they were planted in…

LG's SnowWhite conceptual countertop appliance, on display at this year's South by Southwest, is like a Keurig machine for ice cream lovers that produces your favorite frozen desserts from nothing but a little pod.